The 10th of May 1940, World War 2, the Netherlands. Nazi Germany invades Holland
and the German Air Forces – the Luftwaffe – use paratroopers in the capture of tactical points and
to assist in the advance of ground troops across the country. The invasion is accompanied by heavy
aerial bombardment of Rotterdam and culminates on the 14th of May with the destruction of its entire
historic center. Because the Germans threaten to bomb the city of Utrecht in the same way,
the Dutch forces surrender one day later. Soon after the Nazis start to occupy the
whole country and pass new anti-Jewish laws which are designed to exclude Jewish people
from society and restrict their livelihood. The systematic deportations of Dutch Jews to death
camps start in July 1942. However, because some Dutch citizens cannot bear to see what
is happening to their country and people, they join the resistance. One of them is Jan Bonekamp.
Johannes Lambertus Bonekamp was born on the 19th of May 1914 in Amsterdam,
the Netherlands. In September 1938, at the age of 24,
he married Catherina Wilhelmina Brink. Their daughter was born in April 1940.
Before the war Jan Bonekamp worked as a driver at Hoogovens, one of the largest
steel production facilities in Europe. He was a member of the Central Union of Transport Workers,
a radical union with a long tradition of port and fishery strikes. Bonekamp had a
strong intolerance for injustice and belonged to the Communist Party of the Netherlands.
The Second World War started on 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. On 10 May 1940
Hitler invaded the Netherlands and soon after a civil administration was installed under the SS
auspices and Arthur Seyss-Inquart was appointed as the Reich Commissar of the Netherlands. Among
his first steps were a series of laws posing economic discriminations against the Jews.
During 1940, the German occupation authorities banned Jews from the civil
service and required all Jews to register their assets and business enterprises.
In January 1941, the German authorities required all Jews to register themselves as Jews. The
Germans claimed that the requirement that all Jews register was for their own safety, but the truth
was that it enabled their future deportations as the Nazis could easily track them down.
A total of 159,806 persons were registered, including 19,561 persons born of mixed
marriages. The total number included some 25,000 Jewish refugees from the German Reich. A Jewish
council was established in February 1941. The council was held responsible for law
and order in the Jewish districts and if the council failed to ensure this, house
searches would be carried out and there would be severe punishments for anyone possessing arms.
From the beginning of the German occupation, Bonekamp engaged in resistance. He put up posters,
distributed illegal newspapers and leaflets and raised money for people in hiding.
On 22 and 23 February 1941, German forces raided the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam, arresting
and deporting more than 400 Jewish men to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps.
The Dutch people’s reaction was unique among the Nazi-occupied Europe: they organized the February
Strike, a two-day general strike, which started on 25 February 1941. German officials brutally
suppressed the strike. This action was followed by a hardening in Nazi policy. The German authorities
as well as collaborating Dutch authorities and civil services segregated Jews from the general
Dutch population and incarcerated 15,000 of them in German-administered forced-labor camps. The
Germans then ordered the concentration of Jews in Amsterdam and sent foreign and stateless Jews to
the Westerbork transit camp in the northeast part of the country. Some of the remaining
provincial Jews were sent to the Vught camp. The sign ‘Forbidden for Jews’ appeared on the doors
and gates of cafes, swimming pools, sports fields, museums, zoos, libraries, theatres,
markets and many other public places. Jews had to hand over their valuables, and their businesses
were confiscated. Regulations which forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing
as a means of identification were announced in the Netherlands on 29 April 1942. Those caught
without the badge after 5 May, when they came into effect, were arrested, and detained for a six-week
period to serve at Mauthausen. In the Netherlands everyone knew that this was a death sentence.
Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began in July 1942. The last train left
Westerbork for Auschwitz on 3 September 1944. During these two years, the Germans and their
Dutch collaborators deported some 107,000 Jews, mostly to Auschwitz and Sobibor,
where they were murdered. Only 5,200 survived. In addition, 25,000-30,000 Jews went into hiding,
assisted by the Dutch underground and two-thirds of those managed to survive.
On 29 April 1943, the employees of the Stork machine factory in Hengelo went on strike.
The city of Hengelo was located in Twente - a region in the eastern Netherlands. The strike
quickly spread to other parts of the Twente region and one day later to other parts of
the Netherlands. The wave of strikes was a reaction to the Nazis’ decision to take the
Dutch soldiers prisoner again. A month after the German invasion in May 1940,
Dutch soldiers who had been captured were released under the condition that they would
not resist the occupation forces. However, the Nazis found out that many soldiers had
joined the resistance. Furthermore, Germany suffered from labor shortages and the Dutch
soldiers were supposed to return to captivity to be put to work in the German war industry.
The strike also took place at Hoogovens steel, the company at which Jan Bonekamp worked,
and he played an active role in the strike by distributing illegal newspapers and leaflets.
After the strike, Bonekamp and others were arrested and interrogated but because the
Nazis thought they had the wrong Bonekamp in custody, he was released. He then ran back home
and hid under the floor when the Germans later came to get him. Following this Bonekamp went
into hiding and devoted himself entirely to the resistance. He first worked as a
political officer but soon focused entirely on armed resistance. In autumn 1943 Willem Ragut,
a fanatical nazi collaborator, was appointed chief of police in Zaandam
in North Holland. He worked for the SD, a Nazi secret service, and in that capacity,
he was responsible for the arrest of several resistance fighters. The resistance took the
decision to eliminate him and the order to do so was given to Jan Bonekamp and Hannie Schaft.
Hannie Schaft became famous as "the girl with the red hair" and was placed on the
Nazis' most-wanted list. Adolf Hitler had personally ordered her capture.
Hannie joined the resistance movement upon leaving university in 1943. Whilst at the
resistance she met two sisters, Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who became her close
friends and who would survive the war. Despite being young and female, they formed a famous
trio in the Dutch Resistance, feared by German occupiers as well as by Dutch Nazi collaborators.
Hannie greatly admired Bonekamp as he was charismatic, fearless, good looking and the two
were rumored to have had a romantic relationship. The attack on Willem Ragut was carefully prepared
by Bonekamp and the time and place were established after careful investigation.
On 21 June 1944, the couple was waiting for Willem Ragut in Zandaan, just north of Amsterdam. When
he was spotted, Hannie shot first and quickly cycled away. As a result, Ragut fell off his bike
and was lying on the street. Coincidentally, a formation of bombers was just flying over so most
people thought Ragut had been hit by the bombers. Bonekamp moved closer to deliver the final shot,
but Ragut fired his revolver at the same time, hitting Bonekamp in the stomach. Bonekamp then
emptied his gun on Ragut, who died on the spot. Hannie Schaft escaped and managed to reach her
hiding address in the village of Limmen, about 35 kilometers northwest of Amsterdam. Bonekamp
stumbled away bleeding from the site of the attack and rang the doorbell of a house where two old
ladies lived. A woman called a police officer, who then hid Bonekamp's revolver. He was then
taken to the emergency room at the police station, where a collaborating policeman alerted the SD.
Bonekamp was arrested and transferred to the Wilhelmina Hospital in Amsterdam.
Hannie Schaft and Truus Oversteegen watched as the heavily guarded Bonekamp
was carried in there on a stretcher. The Germans gave a chemical injection
to Bonekamp to make him feel loose. He then unintentionally gave Hannie's
name and address to Dutch Nazi nurses pretending to be resistance workers.
Soon after, on 21 June 1944, the 30-year-old Jan Bonekamp died from his injuries. A week later,
Nazis raided Hannie’s parent’s house and sent her parents to a Dutch concentration camp. Hannie,
overwhelmed with grief, nearly turned herself in but resistance
members ordered her to stay with the Oversteegens until she calmed down.
Towards the end of the war Hannie was caught during a police control carrying two
resistance-friendly newspapers and a pistol. She was arrested and brought to a prison in Amsterdam
where she was tortured and interrogated. Hannie was executed on 17 April 1945,
only 18 days before the Netherlands was liberated from Nazi occupation.
Truus and Freddie Oversteegen survived the war and in 2014 were awarded the Mobilization
War Cross by the Dutch prime minister for their service during the Second World War.
A week after the liberation, on 12 May 1945, a monument to Bonekamp was unveiled in in
Zaandam at the place where he had been fatally wounded. In 1980, a memorial stone dedicated to
Hannie Schaft was added to Bonekamp's monument and revealed by former resistance fighters.
There are also streets named after Jan Bonekamp in the cities of Ijmuiden and Zaandam.
Since 2004, the Jan Bonekamp Commemorative Committee has had a speaker at his grave
every 4 May and among the regular attendees was also Freddie Oversteegen.
Bonekamp's actions during the war symbolized the bravery and sacrifice displayed by members
of the Dutch resistance in opposing the Nazi regime. Jan Bonekamp's unwavering
dedication to freedom and justice continues to inspire generations,
his memory is a beacon of hope in the face of oppression.
There were many tears shed for Jan Bonekamp.
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